I’m ready to get organized, where do I start?

Where do I start? So often we start in the kitchen or pantry, because, well, it’s a hot mess. And also, those are the spaces that people see. My hand is raised on this one. When I’m feeling overwhelmed and cluttered, I start tossing anything that’s past it’s expiration date.

My advice: start in your personal spaces. Your closet, your bathroom, your bedroom, your personal bags (purse, backpack). No, it doesn't get the oooos and ahhhhhs that you might want, but also, no one will mess it up before tomorrow, or sooner.

Reach out if you need a hand getting started. I’d love to have a conversation about what the process could look like for you, and how good it will feel to have an organized space and a calm home.

Take the Before Picture

Our friends are traveling to Europe to visit their daughter and family. Because shipping is crazy expensive, they are taking a bunch of stuff to her that they have been saving up for this trip. 

Going into the fall/winter season, she is taking sweaters and jackets, school supplies and slippers. It was all sitting next to the suitcase she had intended to pack it in, but just had not yet had a chance to get it packed.  

So, I offered to have a go at packing it all into that suitcase, and DadGum, I wish I had taken the Before picture. The After picture is so deceiving. You cannot tell at all that there might be a hundred things in there. Maybe she will take an After It’s Unpacked picture for me.

I do like a good game of Tetris…

Bless Your Heart

You know, they say that 1 out of 1 of us will die. When I hear that, I think, "When I'm gone, someone will go through all of my stuff." It all stays behind, you know. So, If that were the case tomorrow, do I care that someone will open a drawer and say, "Bless her heart," when they see all of the saved notepads and address labels from St. Jude? Will they find drawers full of pretty cloth napkins and placemats that have never been used? Scented candles unburned? Plastic bags carefully folded and tucked away? Jars and jars and jars for days? And books; good heavens, the books.

 To be clear, my motivation for decluttering and having less stuff is not, "Someone will someday go through my stuff and what will they think of me?" but rather, "Am I enjoying all the things I have right now? Am I enjoying my family and friends in this moment right now?"

And also: "If I choose today to live with less, what might that free me up to do tomorrow?" Coming out from under the mental obligation of stuff that is waiting for "some day," frees me up to find something new to do, someone new to help, something new to read. And those new things give me something new to experience, someone new to enjoy, and a book to share (or return to the library for the next gal to borrow).

So, what's my Call To Action? Today, I'm going to fill a box with books (that I know good and well I won't read), remove some of that costume jewelry (that I know good and well I won't go looking for when I'm in a rush to get out the door), and toss a few more clothes into the donate bin (that I know good and well I won't wear even when I do lose those extra pounds).

Stuff Shifting

Stuff shifting.

Can you guess what I've been doing all week? On the surface, that's all it feels like I've accomplished. But if we go below the surface…

It all started with shifting stuff around the garage to make a better walkway to the kitchen door. It was a thousand degrees, or so it feels in Memphis these days. And we were in a sweat by the time the storm arrived. To be fair, a few things were thrown away, given away, moved to the thrift pile. That felt like a win.

We accomplished the stated goal of making the path to the door more clear, but took two steps backwards by making the exit from both vehicles in the garage a bit more challenging. So, that felt like a fail.

And then a week of hosting family, severe weather, 4-day power outage, and the subsequent stuff shifting all over town, cooking dinner in two kitchens not my own, and sleeping in a bed not my own, two cold showers at home, two warm showers away from home, and THEN the blessing of cleaning out my own refrigerators and freezers… whew! It's been a week!

A good week, to be clear. We laughed, we visited, mani/pedis, salon visits, lunches out, good conversations, good home improvement TV binges. It's been a good week. Celebrated an anniversary, a birthday, and American Independence with fireworks, friends, food, so many fun conversations, and so much laughter.

Now, 7 days later, I'm doing the ultimate stuff shift: LAUNDRY. Schlepping the clothes from the bedroom to the laundry room, from the washer to the dryer, back to the bedroom to sort and fold and put away.

Feels good to look back on the week, the highlights, the setbacks, the victories.

It's a blessing that we do not know what a day might bring. I might have crawled under the bed in the dark for a week and missed out on the gifts and goodness the Lord had in store for us all. Neighbors and friends checking on one another. Meals planned, executed, and enjoyed. Grace given and received when it was needed most.

And now my introverted self is going to enjoy a quiet day to recover from a very extroverted, social week.  

Time to reboot the laundry…

July 2, 2023